New Officials Sworn in November 18

By Bob Bumcrot
“Ballot counting will take longer under the new procedure,” said Election Moderator Bill Brodnitzki after closing the November 6 vote for town offices. This was indeed the case. Results were posted at 8:38 p.m., but officials, some of whom had arrived before 5 a.m., did not go home until 9:30. “We will get somewhat faster after another election,” said Registrar Kevin O’Connor.
As officials unlocked the AccuVote optical scanner, Technician Donald Collins disassembled the six voting stations where 593 voters, except for a few absentees, had marked their ballots. A “program end” card was inserted and the machine printed three copies of the results on seven-foot lengths of paper tape while officials counted absentee ballots. While the tapes constitute a sort of “paper trail,” the real hard evidence of the vote were the inserted ballots themselves. This was the principal reason for the state-mandated change from the previously used voting machines.
Although the election was largely uneventful, a few voters were heard to complain about the procedure of ballot marking with a special pen. This was especially true of some whose ballots were rejected by the machine for overvoting or improper marking.
The newly elected officials, who were sworn in on Sunday, November 18 are First Selectman: Susan M. Dyer; Selectmen: James J. Stotler, Sr. and Leo Francis Colwell, Jr.; Town Treasurer: Chelsea J. Byrne; Tax Collector: Eleanor E. LaForge; Board of Finance: Suzanne B. Hinman and E. Keith Harvill; Board of Finance Alternate: Karen D. Sebach; Board of Finance Alternate to fill a four-year vacancy: Nina M. Ritson; Board of Education: Donna T. Rubin, Joseph William Green and Edward Jay Lockwood; Board of Education to fill a two-year vacancy: Sally Carr; Board of Assessment Appeals: Schuyler W. Thomson; Planning and Zoning Commission: Michele J. Sloane and Jeffrey James Torrant; Planning and Zoning Commission Alternate: Elizabeth Colt Kittredge; Zoning Board of Appeals: Carl F. Gundlach, Mary J. Bazzano Reeve and Daniel J. Green; and Zoning Board of Appeals Alternate: Alan J. Boucher and Buzz Bazzano Peacock.

Photo by Adela Hubers.